Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 2, 2022
Decision Letter - Uzma Shamsi, Editor

PONE-D-22-03335The Relationship Between Family History of Cancer and Cancer Attitudes & Beliefs Within the Community Initiative Towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) CohortPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lin 

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

  • Please remove Wald from 95 % CI in tables titles
  • References in the conclusion sec may be moved to the discussion part with focus on conclusion only.
  • 203 line (Backward Model Selection) remove it and add it either in the footnote or text
  • replace N with small n (N=603) I all the places
  • correct the spacing of all tables’ titles
  • there is difference and bias introduced while using multiple data collection methods like survey through phone calls, in-person interviews, and web

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 15, 2022. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Uzma Shamsi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf.

2. Thank you for stating in your Funding Statement:

“This project was supported by The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center using Pelotonia funds, a supplement to the NCI grant (P30CA016058), The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science CTSA grant UL1TR002733, and supported by the Recruitment, Intervention and Survey Shared Resource (RISSR) at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center (P30CA016058). This work was supported by the Samuel J. Roessler Memorial Scholarship through The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Medical Student Research Program Scholarship (To LL) and the National Cancer Institute (F99CA25374501 to XZ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or reparation of the manuscript.”

Please provide an amended statement that declares *all* the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now.  Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement.

Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well.

4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article highlights an important association between family history of cancer and cancer attitude and beliefs.

There are some aspects that authors may consider reviewing

Participants eligibility criteria is not defined well. Under outcome variables why prostrate screening is not mentioned.

I don't see description for sample size calculation

2nd line in the discussion section on " We hypothesized that participants with a FDR with cancer would have more negative attitudes and beliefs about cancer" contradicts with line # 95-96 in introduction where FDR with cancer has been cited to related with more conscious attitude towards health screening.

Discussion

Overall length of this section seems very limited. Authors can consider adding more literature to compare and contrast the findings.

********** 

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If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Nousheen Akber Pradhan

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 1

Thank you for your thoughtful review, comments, and suggestions. We believe we have now addressed these concerns and have detailed them below.

Academic Editor comments:

• Please remove Wald from 95 % CI in tables titles

RESPONSE: Wald has been removed from all table titles.

• References in the conclusion section may be moved to the discussion part with focus on conclusion only.

RESPONSE: References in the conclusion section have been removed and now are addressed in the discussion section.

• 203 line (Backward Model Selection) remove it and add it either in the footnote or text

RESPONSE: Thank you, (Backward Model Selection) was removed and added to the footnote for all relevant tables.

• replace N with small n (N=603) in all the places

RESPONSE: All N’s have been replaced with small n’s.

• correct the spacing of all table titles

RESPONSE: Thank you, we have changed the spacing to single spacing for all table titles, if there are other concerns, we are more than happy to edit with more clarification from the reviewer.

• there is difference and bias introduced while using multiple data collection methods like survey through phone calls, in-person interviews, and web

RESPONSE: Thank you, we agree with this comment. The strengths and limitations section has been updated to reflect this.

Additional requirements:

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming.

RESPONSE: Thank you. This has been addressed.

2. Thank you for stating in your Funding Statement:

“This project was supported by The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center using Pelotonia funds, and a supplement to the NCI grant (P30CA016058), The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science CTSA grant UL1TR002733, and supported by the Recruitment, Intervention and Survey Shared Resource (RISSR) at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center (P30CA016058). This work was supported by the Samuel J. Roessler Memorial Scholarship through The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Medical Student Research Program Scholarship (To LL) and the National Cancer Institute (F99CA25374501 to XZ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or reparation of the manuscript.”

Please provide an amended statement that declares *all* the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now. Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement.

Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

RESPONSE: the Financial Statement has now been updated and is included in the cover letter.

3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well.

RESPONSE: Thank you. This has been addressed.

4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

RESPONSE: Thank you. This has been addressed.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1: The article highlights an important association between family history of cancer and cancer attitude and beliefs. There are some aspects that authors may consider reviewing

Participants eligibility criteria is not defined well.

RESPONSE: Data for the current study was collected as part of the CITIES project. The overall goal of the CITIES project was to define and describe the catchment area of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC). All Ohio residents between the ages of 21 to 74 were eligible for this study. The methods section has been updated to correct the age range. A variety of recruitment methods were used to gather a diverse sample. We briefly summarized the sampling methods in the manuscript. More detailed methods and sampling strategies have been described in the original CITIES manuscript and is cited in the methods:

Paskett ED, Young GS, Bernardo BM, Washington C, DeGraffinreid CR, Fisher JL, et al. The CITIES Project: Understanding the Health of Underrepresented Populations in Ohio. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2019;28(3):442-54.

Under outcome variables why prostate screening is not mentioned.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Knowledge about prostate cancer screening was not included as a question in the CITIES survey; therefore, it could not be evaluated as an outcome in our study. Notably, prostate cancer screening guidelines are highly variable. Screening recommendations depend on an individual’s life expectancy and shared decision-making between patient and their provider.

I don't see description for sample size calculation

RESPONSE: A sample size calculation was not performed for this study. We considered if we would have an adequate sample size for analysis by considering the minimum counts needed per predictor. The maximum number of predictors used in the models was 9 variables, and with the minimum of 10 counts per predictor, the study is well over the sample of n=90 needed for analysis.

2nd line in the discussion section on " We hypothesized that participants with a FDR with cancer would have more negative attitudes and beliefs about cancer" contradicts with line # 95-96 in introduction where FDR with cancer has been cited to related with more conscious attitude towards health screening.

RESPONSE: The studies cited report a positive relationship between having a FDR with cancer and increased cancer screening behavior. It is thought that cancer attitudes and beliefs (CABs) may play a role in this association, but there are no studies to directly support this. Our study specifically examines the relationship between FDR and cancer attitudes and beliefs.

Discussion

Overall length of this section seems very limited. Authors can consider adding more literature to compare and contrast the findings.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your careful review and suggestion. The discussion section is updated with additional literature.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: ResponsetoReviewers_CITIES.docx
Decision Letter - Uzma Shamsi, Editor

PONE-D-22-03335R1The relationship between family history of cancer and cancer attitudes & beliefs within the Community Initiative Towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) cohortPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lin,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================1. The justification provided is not entirely correct. While it is true that having a minimum count of 10 per predictor is a general rule of thumb, it is not the only consideration when determining sample size for a study. Other factors that should be taken into account include the effect size you want to detect, the desired level of statistical power, and the alpha level (level of significance) you plan to use. Without a formal sample size calculation, it is difficult to determine if the sample size is truly adequate for the study's research questions and hypotheses. Therefore, while the study might have enough data to conduct some form of analysis, the lack of a formal sample size calculation could be considered a limitation of the study.

2. Tabs. 3 & 4 results are not mentioned in the abstract and are not coherent with the main study objectives.

3. Need to improve the main focus of the manuscript with coherence in the objectives and results.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 26 2023 11:59PM.  If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Uzma Shamsi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 2

Thank you for your thoughtful review, comments, and suggestions. We believe we have now addressed these concerns and have detailed them below.

1. The justification provided is not entirely correct. While it is true that having a minimum count of 10 per predictor is a general rule of thumb, it is not the only consideration when determining sample size for a study. Other factors that should be taken into account include the effect size you want to detect, the desired level of statistical power, and the alpha level (level of significance) you plan to use. Without a formal sample size calculation, it is difficult to determine if the sample size is truly adequate for the study's research questions and hypotheses. Therefore, while the study might have enough data to conduct some form of analysis, the lack of a formal sample size calculation could be considered a limitation of the study.

RESPONSE: We acknowledge that we did not have a sample size calculation for this study. However, the goal of the Community Initiative Towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) project was to develop core survey items and implement population surveys in the catchment area of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center. Since this was a one-time cross-sectional survey conducted between 2017 and 2018, and we are not quantifying any intervention effects or conducting comparisons to other populations, we do not think a post hoc sample size calculation is required. The current study is to describe cancer attitudes and beliefs among the study population within the OSUCCC catchment area. We included that the findings from this study is not generalizable to other populations as a limitation. We also described the differences of the study sample characteristics within the general Ohio residents. Therefore, we think we have addressed the limitation of the study design.

2. Tabs. 3 & 4 results are not mentioned in the abstract and are not coherent with the main study objectives.

RESPONSE: The manuscript has been revised to include the importance of tables 3 & 4.

3. Need to improve the main focus of the manuscript with coherence in the objectives and results.

RESPONSE: The manuscript has been revised to address coherence.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: ResponsetoReviewers_CITIES.docx
Decision Letter - Uzma Shamsi, Editor

The relationship between family history of cancer and cancer attitudes & beliefs within the Community Initiative Towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) cohort

PONE-D-22-03335R2

Dear Dr. Lin,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Uzma Shamsi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Uzma Shamsi, Editor

PONE-D-22-03335R2

The relationship between family history of cancer and cancer attitudes & beliefs within the Community Initiative Towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) cohort

Dear Dr. Lin:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Uzma Shamsi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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